Agricultural feed and compost bagging machines have been employed for several years to pack or bag silage, compost or the like into elongated plastic bags. Two of the earliest bagging machines are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,687,061 and 4,046,068, the complete disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. In prior art bagging machines, silage, compost, or the like is supplied to the forward or intake end of the bagging machine and is fed to a packing means such as a rotor, plunger, screw conveyor or the like which conveys the material into a tunnel on which the bag is positioned so that the bag is filled. As the silage is packed into the bag, the bagging machine moves away from the filled end of the bag in a controlled fashion so as to achieve uniform compaction of the silage material within the bag. The empty elongated plastic bags are in a folded condition and are initially positioned over the tunnel or forming means of the machine.
In the present state of the art, the manufacturers of the plastic silage/compost bag must blow or extrude the plastic into a tubular/bag shape, roll it onto a core, fold it into a collar, and then put the same into a box or container, which is palleted for shipping. Once the box is delivered to the field, it may take several men and a crane to lift the bag out of the box and feed it by hand over and onto the tunnel. The bag is then laboriously pushed onto the tunnel until the bag is gathered at the forward end of the tunnel so that the bag is ready for filling and packing.
A major disadvantage and cost of the current method of manufacturing plastic bags for use on bagging machines is the sophisticated and expensive machinery required by the manufacturers to fold the bags after the blowing or extruding process. Only a few manufacturers have such costly machines, and they pass the processing and material costs onto the end user. Secondly, the extra steps necessary to convert the roll of plastic into bags, fold the bags into boxes, load the individual boxes into a larger container for shipping, and then transport and deliver those boxes to the consumers adds time, packaging, space requirements, handling equipment, manpower and disposal costs to the entire process.
A further problem created by the present method of putting a plastic bag onto a bagging machine is the physical strain and danger to the men who load the bag onto the tunnel. The newer, bigger bags (14′×500′) weigh up to 1200 lbs and the industry trend is for even larger tunnels and even longer bags.
There is a need to replace the old process of manufacturing the bags and the installation of the same on the bagging machines to reduce manufacturing and handling costs, improve safety and worker ergonomics, and eliminate the stranglehold a few manufacturers have on bag distributors and consumers.